Stephen Donaldson: The Illearth War

He needed an answer. His resources were spent, and he could not go on the way he was.

Berek!

The girl's shout, and the raw applause of her audience, and the trucker's outrage, reverberated in him like muffled earth tremors. Suicide loomed in all directions. He was trapped between mad delusion and the oppressive weight of his fellow human beings.

Leper outcast unclean!

He gripped his shoulders and hugged himself to try to still the gasping of his heart.

I can't stand it! Somebody help me!

Suddenly, the phone rang-cut through him as stridently as a curse. Disjointedly, like a loose collection of broken bones, he jumped to his feet. But then he did not move. He lacked the courage to face more hostility, indemnification.

The phone shrilled again.

His breath shuddered in his lungs. Joan seemed to reproach him from behind the glass of the picture frame.

Another ring, as insistent as a fist.

He lurched toward the phone. Snatching up the receiver, he pressed it to his ear to hold it steady.

“Tom?” a faint, sad voice sighed. “Tom-it's Joan. Tom? I hope I didn't wake you. I know it's late, but I had to call. Tom?”

Covenant stood straight and stiff, at attention, with his knees locked to keep him from falling. His jaw worked, but he made no sound. His throat felt swollen shut, clogged with emotions, and his lungs began to hurt for air.

“Tom? Are you there? Hello? Tom? Please say something. I need to talk to you. I've been so lonely. I–I miss you.” He could hear the effort in her voice.

His chest heaved fiercely, as if he were choking. Abruptly he broke through the block in his throat, and took a deep breath that sounded as if he were between sobs. But still he could not force up words.

“Tom! Please! What's happening to you?”

His voice seemed to be caught in a death grip. Desperate to shatter the hold, to answer Joan, cling to her voice, keep her on the line, he picked up the phone and started back toward the sofa-hoping that movement would ease the spasm that clenched him, help him regain control of his muscles.

But be turned the wrong way, wrapping the phone cord around his ankle. As he jerked forward, he tripped and pitched headlong toward the coffee table. His forehead struck the edge of the table squarely. When he hit the floor, he seemed to feel himself bounce.

Instantly, his sight went blank. But he still had the receiver clutched to his ear. During a moment of white stillness, he heard Joan's voice clearly. She was becoming upset, angry.

“Tom, I'm serious. Don't make this any harder for me than it already is. Don't you understand? I want to talk to you. I need you. Say something. Tom. Tom! Damn you, say something!”

Then a wide roaring in his ears washed out her voice. No! he cried. No! But he was helpless. The rush of sound came over him like a dark tide, and carried him away.

THE wide roar modulated slowly, changing the void of his sight. On the surge of the sound, a swath of grey-green spread upward until it covered him like a winding sheet. The hue of the green was noxious to him, and he felt himself smothering in its close, sweet, fetid reek-the smell of attar. But the note which filled his ears grew more focused, scaled up in pitch. Droplets of gold bled into view through the green. Then the sound turned softer and more plaintive, higher still in pitch, so that it became a low human wail. The gold forced back the green. Soon a warm, familiar glow filled his eyes.

As the sound turned more and more into a woman's song, the gold spread and deepened-cradled him as if it were carrying him gently along the flood of the voice. The melody wove the light, gave it texture and shape, solidity. Helpless to do otherwise, he clung to the sound, concentrated on it with his mouth stretched open in protest.

Slowly, the singing throat opened. Its harmonic pattern became sterner, more demanding. Covenant felt himself pulled forward now, hurried down the tide of the song. Arching with supplication, it took on words.

Be true, Unbeliever—

Answer the call.

Life is the Giver:

Death ends all.

The promise is truth,

And banes disperse

With promise kept:

But soul's deep curse

On broken faith

And faithless thrall,

For doom of darkness

Covers all.

Be true, Unbeliever—

Answer the call.

Be true.

The song seemed to reach back into him, stirring memories, calling up people he had once, in one fey mood, thought had the right to make demands of him. But he resisted it. He kept silent, held himself in.

The melody drew him on into the warm gold.

At last, the light took on definition. He could locate its shape before him now; it washed out his vision as if he were staring into the sun. But on the last words of the song, the light dimmed, lost its brilliance. As the voice sang, “Be true,” it was seconded by many throats: “Be true!” That adjuration stretched him like: the tightening of a string to its final pitch.

Then the source of the light fell into scale, and he could see beyond it.

He recognized the place. He was in the Close, the council chamber of the Lords in the heart of Revel-.: stone. Its tiers of seats reached above him on all sides toward the granite ceiling of the hall.

He was surprised to find himself standing erect on the bottom of the Close. The stance confused his sense of balance, and he stumbled forward toward the pit of graveling, the source of the gold light. The fire-stones burned there before him without consumption, filling the air with the smell of newly broken earth.

Strong hands caught him by either arm. As his fall was halted, drops of blood spattered onto the stone floor at the edge of the graveling pit.

Regaining his feet, he cried hoarsely, “Don't touch me!”

He was dizzy with confusion and rage, but he braced himself while he put a hand to his forehead. His fingers came away covered with blood. He had cut himself badly on the edge of the table. For a moment, he gaped at his red hand.

Through his dismay, a quiet, firm voice said, “Be welcome in the Land, ur-Lord Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever and Ringthane. I have called you to us. Our need for your aid is great.”

“You called me?” he croaked.

“I am Elena,” the voice replied, “High Lord by the choice of the Council, and holder of the Staff of Law. I have called you.”

“You called me?” Slowly, he raised his eyes. Thick wetness ran from the sockets as if he were weeping blood. “You called me?” He felt a crumbling inside him like rocks breaking, and his hold over himself cracked. In a voice of low anguish, he said, “I was talking to Joan.”

He saw the woman dimly through the blood in his eyes. She stood behind the stone table on the level above him, holding a long staff in her right hand. There were other people around the table, and behind them the gallery of the Close held many more. They were all watching him.

“To Joan, do you understand? I was talking to Joan. She called me. After all this time. When I needed-needed. You have no right.” He gathered force like a storm wind. “You've got no right! I was talking to Joan !” He shouted with all his might, but it was not enough. His voice could not do justice to his emotion. “To Joan! to Joan! do you hear me? She was my wife !”

A man who had been standing near the High Lord hurried around the broad open C of the table, and came down to Covenant on the lower level. Covenant recognized the man's lean face, with its rudder nose mediating between crooked, humane lips and acute, gold flecked, dangerous eyes. He was Lord Mhoram.

He placed a hand on Covenant's arm, and said softly, “My friend. What has happened to you?”